


Where the Nightmares Never End

by Telaryn



Series: The Hero and The Bad Boy [29]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Leverage, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Gang Rape, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, M/M, Male Slash, Multi, Near Death, Past Abuse, Past Lives, Past Relationship(s), Physical Abuse, Rape, Rape Aftermath, Revenge, Uneasy Allies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-03
Updated: 2014-04-03
Packaged: 2018-01-18 02:06:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1410982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Telaryn/pseuds/Telaryn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Quinn's past comes back looking for revenge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where the Nightmares Never End

**Author's Note:**

> Leverage fans know that Eliot Spencer is a man who doesn't believe in redemption. He understands that there is no 'balancing the scales' for the things he's done - he's just determined to do as much good as he can before he goes to hell.
> 
> Quinn as he's evolved under my hand tends to be a bit more of a romantic. He's finally reached a point in his life and with his relationship where it's easy to fall into the trap of forgetting who he used to be, of thinking that as long as he stays out of the spotlight the person he was and the things he did don't matter anymore.
> 
> They do, of course, and occasionally I feel the need to remind him of that fact.
> 
> This installment of the boys' journey goes to a very dark place - possibly darker than I've ever gone - and I've saved the most complicated fallout for the next chapter. I hope I don't lose any of you along the way and that the payoff in the end is worth your time and tears.

They all had one – at least one. Anyone who’d ever done time taking money in exchange for doing unspeakable things had something in their past that wasn’t finished as cleanly as it could have been, something that could someday track them down looking for payback.

In Quinn’s case it was an Afghan arms dealer he’d been hired to dispatch. The target had been tipped off he was coming and had kept his family home that night – hoping the presence of innocents would dissuade Quinn from filling the terms of his contract. The son had been fifteen at the time, old enough to pick up a gun and make himself a threat.

Quinn only knew one way to deal with threats. His rationalization was that he made sure it was quick; one shot right between the eyes. The kid had likely never felt a thing, and he’d also never been able to grow up into his father’s lifestyle. The mother had been in the room at the time and cursed him soundly on the death of her son, but even though she’d taken up a knife from the table she kept her distance from him – her only thought to protect her one remaining child.

 _A daughter._ Quinn had never actually seen the child, but he knew she was small enough to crouch behind her mother, and he understood the woman when she snarled at him to “leave her alone – she means nothing to you”.

They’d been no real threat to his contract, so he’d left them alone and never looked back. It was how he lived – how he thrived in his profession. You acted and the action was either right or wrong. Second-guessing yourself got you nothing but an early grave.

And then Clint Barton had come into his life, turning everything upside down and making it so that Quinn was suddenly second-guessing _everything_. Eventually he was convinced to turn his back on his former life and sins and “go straight” as the saying went. He accepted a position with Stark Industries that paid nearly as well as his contract work, and so far had managed to keep him challenged and engaged. Best of all, his relationship with Clint had continued to deepen and grow into something he was starting to think of in longer and more permanent terms.

The last thing on his mind as he left Stark Industries’ New York headquarters near midnight was an Afghan girl who’d escaped his eye a decade earlier. He certainly wasn’t prepared to make the connection between that girl and the woman in the parking lot glaring at her car as if it had personally insulted her.

“If it’s a dead battery I can probably help you,” he said, keeping a respectful distance. Having once been the sort of man you didn’t want to encounter in a dark alley, he tried these days to be sensitive to ordinary people’s fears.

Of course sometimes it turned out to be embarrassingly unnecessary. “Mr. Quinn?” the woman asked, clearly recognizing him. “It’s Badria…Badria Sahar. I work on the twelfth floor.”

He would spend the next several weeks silently berating himself for taking her act at face value. It was a rookie mistake, one he would end up paying for in ways he’d stopped considering far too long ago as a possible part of his future.  
*****************  
It was much, much later when Quinn would finally realize the full scope of how he’d been taken. In the first confused moments after he regained consciousness, his brain kept trying to insist that he’d only lost the blink of an eye.

Resolutely shoving aside the fear that was screaming along his nervous system, Quinn tried to narrow his focus until the only thing he was aware of was his breathing. _This isn’t your first rodeo, idiot,_ he silently reminded himself. _Get it together._ The truth of it steadied him, but it was still took more than two dozen inhales and exhales before he felt calm enough to begin assessing his situation.

They’d left him his pants – he was grateful for that. Everything else was gone though, and the ropes binding his wrists and ankles were secured with knots as intricate as anything he’d ever encountered. What he could see of his cell was small; rough-hewn stone walls and a dirt floor outside the small protection of the thread-bare blankets they’d given him to lie on.

He hadn’t been beaten or otherwise injured while he was unconscious, but Quinn knew better than to hope that was a situation that would last. Whoever had ordered him taken knew his reputation and respected it. That meant he had information they were hoping he would give up – or more likely that they were looking to revenge themselves on him for something he’d done in the past.

 _And that’s going to be a fairly long and very ugly list,_ he thought, testing his bonds more out of reflex than any hope he would be able to squirm free. _Oh God, this is gonna suck._

The sound of his cell door opening caught him by surprise, destroying any chance he might have had of pretending to still be unconscious. “Jonah Quinn,” the first man through the door said – his voice overly pleasant and booming. “How long has it been?”

Quinn recognized him. His stomach twisted over into increasingly painful knots as the faces of the five men that followed him into the cramped space also tugged hard at his most deeply buried memories. “Not long enough, Sweeney,” he sighed, trying to affect as bored an attitude as he could manage with his pulse pounding in his ears. “Not nearly long enough.”

The first blow came without any warning at all – a kick to the small of his back that lit up his nervous system with so much pain that it whitened his vision and he thought for a moment he might pass out. “Son of a bitch,” he gasped, tears leaking from the corners of his eyes. “Happy to see you too.”

He registered the next blow as a fist to his temple, and then they were all on him – a swelling tidal wave of pain crashing into him and threatening to drag him under for good.

 _Sweeney…_ Quinn had been hired to take out the man’s oldest son in retaliation for some slight Sweeney’s organization had done to an arms dealer in Northern Ireland. _Tarsky_ …smaller and darker, landing his kicks with brutal efficiency on Quinn’s stomach. That had been a firebomb, set by Quinn so that the man knew who he’d crossed as he watched everything he held dear burn to ash.

 _Jerrit, Benton, McGee and Court…_ Quinn had been contracted by different people over the years to hurt each of them in memorably painful ways. He’d been good at it.

Very good.

 _This is it._ It was a small, quiet voice in his head that he’d only heard a couple of times in his life; the moment where he could no longer keep awareness of his encroaching death at bay. The previous times he’d escaped his fate at the eleventh hour by circumstances he couldn’t even relate to people who weren’t there, they were so fantastic.

 _Now though…_ His head had been too far out of the game; the trap had been laid specifically for him, and he’d walked into it like an amateur. His attackers didn’t want anything he could offer them, except his suffering and eventual death. As pain overwhelmed him and it became harder and harder to think, the hope that he might figure out a way to fight back, get himself free, slipped further and further away.

Awareness returned in a sharp, painful flash of light, just as the darkness was about to claim him for good. Rough hands were on his waistband now, tearing open his fly, dragging the fabric past his bruised hips…

“I want his mouth,” one of his attackers said – Quinn couldn’t tell who anymore.

 _Clint!_ he thought desperately as he struggled weakly against the hands flipping him onto his stomach. _Clint, God, please…I don’t want to die like this._ He’d finally started to believe that he had a shot at living to a pathetically old age, with someone he truly loved at his side. The universe couldn’t be cruel enough to take it away now in such a horrifying fashion.

Almost as if he’d made his protest out loud, a harsh voice whispered in his ear, “Just remember – you brought this on yourself.”  
**************************************  
“By the time the system flagged it for Happy’s attention, it was too late.” None of Tony’s usual devil-may-care snark was on display as Clint finally reached the security station; Natasha hard on his heels. The founder of Stark Industries gestured off-handedly at one of the side monitors that had frozen on the face of a young Middle Eastern woman Clint judged to be in her mid-twenties. A monitor to the right showed the blur of facial recognition software doing its best to match a face to the name. “She had credentials, was in the employee parking lot, but doesn’t actually appear to be one of ours.”

The largest monitor was frozen on the image of a limp figure being supported between the woman and a stocky man who had his back to the camera. “Run it from the beginning,”

 _How did we not see this coming?_ The trap was almost elegant in its simplicity – executed with a professionalism that terrified Clint.

“This was personal,” Nat said. She shrugged when Tony and Clint turned to look at her. “Look at her body language when he approaches. You would think she’s faking a connection in order to draw him in, but she’s too comfortable in the role – it’s second nature to her.”

“So you don’t think it’s an Avengers thing or connected to his work for me?” Tony asked. Clint didn’t bother questioning his partner – if Nat thought this was something rising out of Quinn’s past, that’s what it was.

“We’ve got a name,” one of the techs announced, just as the door opened and one of the last people Clint expected to see entering the room said, “Badria Sahar.”

Phil Coulson reached them in two strides and passed a tablet computer into Clint’s stunned hands. “Afghani national, daughter of an arms dealer executed in a contract killing by Jonah Quinn.” He gestured at the screen where the stocky unknown man was helping Badria load an unconscious Quinn into the back seat of her car. “The man helping her is Derrick Tarsky – also a victim of one of Quinn’s contracts.”

Tony reached out and took the tablet from Clint’s unresisting grip. Still openly gaping at his former handler, Clint asked, “How is SHIELD involved with this?”

Their eyes met, but Clint sensed that Coulson was speaking with the intent that everybody heard what he had to say. “Chatter’s picked up six individuals on federal and SHIELD watch lists who entered the country over the last two weeks. The only thing all six have in common is Jonah Quinn.”

“He’s right,” Tony said, passing the tablet back to Clint. “Looks like this is a revenge job.” Looking up, he continued, “JARVIS? Need a location, buddy.” He cut his eyes in Coulson’s direction. “Unless you’re holding back on us..?”

Coulson shook his head. “My team works outside normal SHIELD parameters. In the spirit of cooperation, Director Fury has given me a squad of his best gunman. All we need is a location, and everybody figures you’re the one to give it to us.”

Tony clearly appreciated the balm to his ego – Clint was just relieved SHIELD seemed to be determined to be a help instead of a hindrance this time. “I’m in,” he told Coulson, daring the older man to tell him otherwise.

Phil nodded. “I assumed you and Romanoff would want to be in on the op.” Tony had his mouth open, but Coulson cut him off with a look. “This can’t be an Avengers thing. And before you go calling Captain Rogers, he’s meeting right now,” Coulson paused to check his wristwatch, “with Fury who is telling him the same thing.”  
*******************************  
Quinn wouldn’t have been surprised to discover that he really was dead – consigned to hell as he always should have been. Consciousness returned in a painful icy rush, radiating out from a needle stabbed directly into his carotid artery.

His injuries were the first thing he was aware of – so many of them crowding in at once that the only sound he could make was a broken, wet-sounding whimper.

“It has been many years, Mr. Quinn.” A chair was set in his field of vision. Quinn was dimly aware of a rhythmic tapping of footsteps, and then Badria Sahar took the seat. “A lifetime, in fact. My lifetime.”

“Who are you?” Whispering was the only way to avoid feeling like his voice was being dragged free over broken glass and stone. He’d originally thought she was a hired gun, brought in to lure him into the others’ trap, but she moved with too much confidence – too much authority. The others deferred to her, and her face triggered _nothing_ in his memory.

A smile that should have softened the woman’s features sent a stab of fear through Quinn’s heart. “You were contracted to kill my father – Pamir Sahar. You broke into our home and shot him in front of us. Then you killed…”

“Your brother,” Quinn breathed as memory returned at last.

Badria nodded. “His name was Tarakhai. He was fifteen when he died at your hand. My mother went mad with grief for a time, but she was able to identify you to my uncles.” Badria reached out and Benton passed her a tablet. “They, in turn, made sure that I understood what it would take to revenge myself on you and restore my family’s honor.” Her dark eyes ticked down to the screen and then back up to focus on Quinn. “It’s adorable how you thought you could just walk away from the devastation in your past and nobody would call you to account for it.”

There was no point in arguing with her, so Quinn didn’t even try. He sensed figured moving around the room, just out of his line of sight, and fear coiled in his stomach that all this monologuing was definitely a pre-cursor to something worse about to happen. Badria’s next words caught him so completely off guard, however, that he couldn’t help but react. “We were surprised to learn that you would make yourself vulnerable by entering into a long-term, public relationship.” She smiled at him, one elegantly sculpted eyebrow arching appreciatively. “Your boyfriend’s cute.”

The threat was so perfectly implied it might as well have been spoken out loud. Quinn started laughing, but the sound was choked off into another wet cry of pain as the broken ends of two of his ribs shifted against each other. “Oh please,” he gasped, once he could breathe again. “Please…try it. I’m begging you.”

There were rivets in the soles of Badria’s combat boots – Quinn saw light spark off them and something in him cringed away from how much it was going to hurt when she kicked him. “He’s better at killing people than I am,” he continued, barely managing to force the words out. “And he’s already tracking you. Count on it.”

Her expression sobered immediately, and Quinn sensed the muscles tightening along the curve of her jaw. “He won’t find you before I’m finished with you.” Pushing to her feet, she nodded at one of the men standing over Quinn. He didn’t resist as his arm was grabbed and something new was injected into his system. “Don’t fret,” she purred, going to her knees next to him. “The plan was always for you to live.” She stroked light fingertips down his bruised and bloodstained cheek – Quinn instinctively leaned into the first comfort he’d had in what seemed like a lifetime, before remembering what was at stake.

“You’re going to live,” she went on, her hand skimming lower – across his chest, tracing the plane of his stomach, “and no matter how much therapy you have or how much self-medication you engage in, you’re going to remember what happened here in this room.” Her fingers circled his half-hard cock, drawing his attention downward, and suddenly Quinn understood what she’d done and how much trouble he was in.

“These fine boys have all had a piece of you for themselves,” she said, looking around the room at where Quinn had to assume her cohorts were arrayed. He was fully erect when her eyes met his again. “It’s my turn now. Gentlemen?”

Pain set his world on fire again as he was dragged onto his back. He wanted to fight, wanted to put up even a token resistance to show he wasn’t beaten, but too much damage had already been done. “Please don’t,” he begged as his arms and legs were dragged out to their full extension and pinned to the dirt floor. He kept his focus on Badria – she was the lynchpin. If he was to suffer any more torture, it would be at her command.

She had risen to her feet and had one boot propped up on the chair. “I can’t take it,” he said, feeling the tears spill from his eyes. “I’m sorry. Please don’t…” The men around him laughed, but he couldn’t muster the energy to care. “You win…I’m never going to recover from this. Not completely. You’ve ruined me…”

Laces were pulled loose on the boot in a slow, careful draw. “I only win if I can guarantee you’ll suffer as much as I’ve suffered since you entered my life.” She slipped off the leather and switched feet. “Which means,” she went on as she started unlacing the other boot, “that it doesn’t matter how much you think you can take. I don’t care how much of you is torn,” the boot came off and her hands went immediately to her belt, “ruptured, bruised or bleeding. You’re a duty to me…a job…a piece of meat to be used and discarded as I see fit.”

Quinn forced himself to focus on her eyes as she stripped off of her pants and underwear. “Of course, if you want to keep begging for mercy, feel free.” She stepped across his body, straddling his hips. “You do it very well – I like the way it sounds.”

 _Clint…_ Quinn thought, squeezing his eyes shut as she lowered herself onto his cock and began fucking him with long, sure strokes. _I’m sorry. I love you._  
******************************  
There was something steadying about being back in uniform, surrounded by people whose skill and determination to see this op through to a successful conclusion matched his own. Coulson hadn’t even argued about putting Clint and Nat in the vanguard of the assault. They were flanked by the best Coulson had to offer from his current team – Agent Grant Ward and Agent Melinda May. Clint knew that as she counted such things, Nat considered May a friend.

He didn’t like Ward. Liked him less, in fact, since learning he was part of Coulson’s hand-picked experimental team, but he didn’t need any of his friends reminding him that he’d given up the right to comment on anything Phil Coulson did months ago. Clint did know that Ward was a professional, and took refuge in understanding that if it was possible to rescue Quinn alive and in one piece, he would do his best to see it happen.

 _”Recon teams and infrared show five in the house, two guarding a shed in the back. One figure in the shed, prone, but the signature’s faint.”_ Clint exhaled through a sudden surge of adrenaline, setting an arrow to his bowstring as it clicked who the prone figure had to be. _”Barton and Ward break left, May and Romanoff right.”_ Coulson continued. _”Secure the shed and rescue the package. On my signal, the rest of the squad is to take the main house and all inside. As many live targets as possible, people. Let’s get this done.”_

Clint’s only excuse for ignoring Coulson’s final direction as he and Ward rounded the back corner of the house was that he recognized Tarsky from their briefing and it didn’t take people smarter than him to know that whatever shape Quinn was in this man was at least partially responsible. Tarsky fell trying to scream a warning around an arrow in his throat. Clint finished him off with another shot to the chest.

He heard Ward make a disapproving noise behind him, but thankfully the man knew when to keep his mouth shut. May and Natasha had engaged with the second guard - _Court_ , Clint’s brain helpfully supplied – leaving the way open for him to get to Quinn.

The stink of sex and blood was so heavy in the air that it froze Clint momentarily in his tracks. _They raped him._ One or more of his captors had participated in the attack, if the evidence in his nostrils could be taken at face value. Breathing as shallowly as he could manage, Clint forced himself past the initial rush of horror to really see the body sprawled on the dirt floor of the shed and acknowledge it was Quinn.

Fear replaced horror in a rush as he reached his lover’s side and realized that he couldn’t see any hint in the dim light that Quinn was still breathing. _Don’t touch him,_ he remembered just in time as he crouched at Quinn’s side. Already he’d catalogued enough injuries that he couldn’t take any risk that something he might do could inadvertently add to the list. _Please…please…please…_ echoed like a litany in Clint’s thoughts as he leaned in as close as he dared – turning his cheek to catch even the slightest hint that the man beneath him still lived.

After a seeming eternity in which Clint died at least a dozen times, Quinn moved. A small, broken sob escaped him as one of his injuries was inflamed by the motion. Pulling back reflexively, Clint barely recovered his balance in time to keep from ending up on his ass in the dirt. He sensed Natasha moving up behind him. “Get the medics,” he managed to choke out. “He’s alive, but it’s bad. Really bad.”

“Ward’s already gone,” she said softly. “I smelled the blood. So did May.” Balancing herself with one hand lightly on her shoulder, she crouched down beside him. “Are you going to let SHIELD handle him, or transfer him to SI?”

“SHIELD,” Clint said automatically. “Tony would do his best, but his people aren’t equipped to deal with…everything.” He drew a deep, shuddering breath. “With the rape.” _If you can’t say the word, can’t admit what happened, you’ll never be able to be there for him the way he needs._ “I’m afraid to touch him,” he admitted, crossing his arms on his knees and clenching his hands into tight fists.

“Smart,” Nat said.

Clint never knew if she intended to say any more, because the tiny space was suddenly overwhelmed with people and equipment. Dragging his partner with him, Clint pushed to his feet and made for the nearest wall – out of the way, but close enough to hear everything that was said. The minutes that followed were some of the hardest of his life as the medics discussed their findings with each other with no concern for anyone but their patient.

And then Quinn regained consciousness. Clint had actually taken a step towards his lover after the first scream of agony cut through the tiny space. “Don’t,” Natasha warned, grabbing him and pulling him back against her. “Your time will come. You aren’t what he needs right now.”

Intellectually Clint understood she was right, but before they could sedate him Quinn’s screams of pain slid into an incoherent rambling out of which only “please”….”no”…and “stop” could be understood. _They broke him._ Black rage kindled a fire in Clint’s soul as he judged just how badly his captors would have had to hurt Quinn in order to get him to beg for mercy.

 _That’s what he’s doing. He’s begging them to stop hurting him._ It was an abomination – an atrocity Clint couldn’t let go unanswered. White noise filled his head and heart as he tore himself free of Natasha’s grasp and ran for the door, pausing only to retrieve his bow.

He had no memory of crossing the yard into the main house, much less fitting an arrow to his string. The only thought in his head was that Quinn was never going to have to worry about this particular threat coming back on him ever again.

It didn’t take him long to find the prisoners – Coulson had ordered the surviving six, including the woman Badria Sahar, secured in the modest living room of the house. Clint slipped easily between the two SHIELD guns watching the door and was raising his bow for the first shot when something slammed into his chest – stopping his forward momentum and briefly expelling the breath from his lungs.

“Barton!” The voice was sharp, familiar, perfectly pitched to pull him free of his rage. Openly shaking now, Clint finally managed to tear his attention away from his targets and focus on Coulson. “Do you trust me?”

The question confused him. “Do you trust me?” Coulson repeated. His palm was still pressed into the center of Clint’s chest where he’d stopped the archer’s charge.

“Yes,” Clint finally managed to get out, “of course. What..?”

“See to Quinn,” Coulson said carefully. “We’ve got this.”

Heat and fire licked at his mind, driving his focus forward once more. _They all had a hand in it._ Any doubt he’d harbored before had been wiped clean; Quinn’s injuries were too extensive and too horrible for it to be otherwise. Clint wanted to throw off Coulson’s restraining hand, start dishing out even a fraction of the payback Quinn was entitled to.

 _He’s not going to let you commit murder._ Clint pulled his attention back to his former handler with an extreme exertion of will and read the truth in Coulson’s eyes. Badria Sahar and her men were in custody. They had been neutralized, Quinn was safe. As badly as he was hurt now, he would recover. Anything Clint did from this point on was assault and murder, no matter how much he might feel it was justified.

And even though they were no longer partners, Coulson would do everything in his power to keep Clint from taking that last, irrevocable step.

“Only because it’s you asking,” he said finally, lowering his bow at last and stepping back from the confrontation. “Only because it’s you.”  
***********************************  
Despite all the work they did to stabilize him for the journey, Quinn flatlined twice during the trip to the nearest SHIELD base. As the medics struggled to bring him back the second time Natasha used her free hand to call Tony Stark. Her other hand was busy holding onto Clint, who was quietly coming apart at the seams.

It was Tony’s idea to bring Steve, who gently but firmly took Clint in hand once the transport landed. “You brought him home,” he told the archer. “Now it’s their turn to make him whole.”

Tony had already fallen in step with the medical team that was taking Quinn to surgery. After exchanging one look with Steve and another with Clint, Natasha followed him. “I need to go with them,” Clint said, but he made no move to get free of Rogers’ restraining hand. “He nearly died twice on the inbound trip. I need to be there, if…”

Steve turned him around almost effortlessly. “You need to take care of yourself while you can,” he said, putting an arm around Clint’s shoulder and guiding him down to the small non-denominational chapel near the medical wing. “Tony will find us if things go south.”

Clint didn’t put up even a token resistance. Steve was a soldier – the _ultimate_ soldier in Clint’s view. He knew what Clint was carrying with him in a way few people could, and happened to be one of the few people Clint trusted enough to unburden himself to.

“Do we have to have the talk where I remind you that none of this is your fault?” Steve asked as they entered the chapel. He secured the door as Clint continued towards the altar. Candles were burning on the cloth covered surface; Clint felt his hand twitch towards the flame.

“Don’t see where you get that, Captain?” he asked softly. “We took _no_ precautions against something like this happening. The idea that someone with his past might have enemies isn’t exactly a stretch.”

“So why didn’t Quinn take precautions of his own?” Clint turned, ready to argue his lover’s case, but it was a fair question and Steve wouldn’t have asked it if it didn’t mean something.

“I don’t know that he didn’t,” Clint finally admitted, looking over the situation in his mind and coming to the conclusion that if he was worried about his past coming back at him Quinn likely wouldn’t have wanted to worry Clint.

“And yet when confronted by this woman, he walked right into her trap.” Steve took a nearby chair – Clint did the same. “From what little I’ve been able to absorb, Quinn never actually met Badria Sahar before that night, is that correct?”

“That looks like it’s about the size of it yeah,” Clint admitted. “I’m not sure if she was in the room or not when Quinn executed her father and brother, but she was young enough that even if he caught a glimpse of her he wouldn’t have made the connection.”

“Put yourself in his shoes,” Steve said, crossing his arms over his chest. “Knowing what he knew, in his place would you have reacted to that particular class of bait any differently?”

Clint didn’t hesitate. “Not a bit. I probably would have flirted with her more than I suspect he did, but we’re all suckers for the damsel in distress bit. Part of the reason I suspect that we’re in the whole hero game.”

He still wasn’t sure exactly what Rogers was looking for from him, but Clint saw the Captain openly relax at that and felt his own tension levels ratchet down a few notches in response. “You know Tony’s not cool with Quinn staying here,” Steve said. “You say the word and he’s ready to have him transferred into the hands of the greatest specialists in the world.”

Clint snorted softly – he could almost hear the air quotes in Steve’s voice. “I figured as much.” Looking up, he met the calm blue eyes of the man seated opposite him. “Can I ask a favor?”

Rogers smiled. “Keep him off you?”

“Keep him off me,” Clint echoed, nodding. “You know how he gets, and that’s not even factoring in the attraction between him and Quinn…which I never bothered to talk to him about.” Waving aside all the concerns he could feel Cap getting ready to voice, Clint pressed on. “Normally it doesn’t bother me – it’s actually kind of cute the way he thinks none of us can tell. Right now though…” He sighed. “Quinn is _my_ fiancé. I need to be the one making the calls regarding his care.”

“I’ll make sure Tony understands,” Steve said. Clint nodded his thanks, but his use of the term fiancé had spun his thoughts in an unexpected direction.

“Almost forgot,” he said, now grinning sheepishly as he opened one of the more secure pockets hanging from his canvas belt and took out the silver engagement ring Quinn had given him. Closing a fist around the cool metal and whispering a quick prayer, he returned it to its proper place on his finger.  
***************************  
It was the way of things that no matter how much sleep or food Clint would deny himself over the next handful of days holding vigil at Quinn’s bedside, the odds were that when his lover finally regained consciousness he would be nowhere around. “I sent him to grab a nap,” were the first words the ex-mercenary heard as his eyes opened and he took in his surroundings for the first time. “He’s been punishing himself for too long waiting for you to wake up.”

Quinn put a hand to his face and registered the oxygen mask. Coulson started forward as soon as he made a move to push it off. “I don’t know if you need to be doing that just yet,” he cautioned, taking Quinn’s wrist and gently removing his hand from the hard plastic surface. After a beat where Quinn showed no inclination to fight him, the SHIELD agent relaxed. “Before the doctors get in here and before you and Clint are reunited I had something I wanted to say to you.”

Something in the SHIELD agent’s tone made Quinn shiver. _He knows._

“I’m pretty sure if you haven’t already decided to spare Clint the details of what happened to you, that’s where your reasoning will eventually put you.” Coulson huffed out a quiet breath. “It’s the wrong play. You need to talk to him, lean on him.”

Bile rose in Quinn’s throat, and this time he did pull the oxygen mask down far enough to allow himself to speak. “You have to know how fucked up it is you giving me advice about this.” _Hands touching him…grasping him…holding him…his own body betraying him as they tore into him with each hard thrust – making it seem on some level as though he welcomed the violation._ He knew now that Badria had drugged him so he would have no control over his body’s responses; pain turned to intense pleasure and ultimately release, even as his soul sickened with the truth of what was happening.

Coulson didn’t flinch away from the implied accusation, but Quinn saw a glint of _something_ in his eyes. “I’m also one of the only people that’s going to tell you he can handle it. Clint loves you, Quinn – let him be there for you.”  
**********************************  
He’d been waiting to hear the words for so long that Clint had to ask Natasha to repeat herself. _”He’s awake.”_ Once it registered that he had heard her correctly, that he wasn’t dreaming or hallucinating, Clint was on his feet and running for Quinn’s room.

“Clint didn’t come to me. I had intel that looked relevant to the situation, so I went to him.”

 _Coulson?_ Clint barely had time to register his former handler’s voice before he was suddenly in the room and both Quinn and Coulson were looking at him. Tears were already in Quinn’s eyes as they looked at each other for the first time in far too long, but apparently whatever he and Coulson had been talking about was important. “Why would you do that?” he asked, not taking his eyes off Clint.

A small smile ghosted across Coulson’s lips as he looked from Clint back to Quinn. “You mean why didn’t I take the opportunity to remove you from the equation?”

“You’re not that kind of man,” Clint said automatically. It was why he hadn’t questioned Coulson’s moves and why he’d largely been comfortable working with SHIELD on the rescue and having Quinn treated by their medics.

“Thank you for that,” Coulson said, “although I think we can all agree that my behavior over the past several months hasn’t always born that out. In this case though,” he said, turning his attention entirely to Quinn, “I decided that if I ever wanted to be able to look at myself in the mirror again I needed to do the right thing and help.”

“And now,” he said, including them both in his statement, “I’m going to let Quinn’s doctors know that he’s awake.” He cut his eyes in Clint’s direction. “I’ll give you as much time as I can, but you know he needs to be checked out sooner rather than later.”

“Five minutes,” Clint said, “and you might want to make them understand that I’m not leaving while they examine him. I don’t care what kind of threats they think they can level.” Coulson nodded, and in a weird, sudden flash of insight Clint realized that he and the other man were coming to a good place with each other – a place where what might have been was a bittersweet memory that they both cherished instead of a continuous stream of salt in a raw, open wound.

“He said you know,” Quinn said softly, once they were alone. “You know everything they did to me.” 

_He’s embarrassed,_ Clint realized, only barely holding himself in check as he moved to Quinn’s bedside. “Tarsky’s dead,” he said, realizing that there was some comfort he could give Quinn right away. “I wish I could tell you I took care of the rest of them, but by the time I realized what they’d done to you the bastards were in custody.” He made a show of rolling his eyes. “Apparently Coulson has ‘views’ on cold blooded murder.”

Quinn’s pale eyes abruptly flushed red, but he gave no other immediate sign that the news was affecting him. “I’ve been here myself more than a few times,” Clint went on softly. “You once told me that it doesn’t take a genius to see how the pieces of this puzzle fit together.” The muscles in his left arm twitched again – not reaching out to touch Quinn, to reassure himself that his lover was here, safe, and at least relatively whole – was starting to cause him actual physical pain. “I’m not going to push you on anything, but if you can tell me what you need from me tonight it would help.”

The ex-mercenary hugged his arms more tightly across his chest. Everything about his posture was suddenly wrong to Clint’s eye – screaming to the archer more effectively than words how deeply his injuries really went. “I don’t know,” he admitted at last. “I…” His voice cracked, and suddenly the sobs he’d been trying so hard to suppress spilled out.

All his careful determination not to push physical contact came unraveled in a moment; Clint was moving before his brain could kick into gear. “Shh…” Limiting himself to hooking one hand behind Quinn’s neck, he gently tugged him closer; increasing the pull when Quinn didn’t resist. “It’s okay. Everything’s going to be okay.” A tension deep inside his soul eased suddenly as Quinn finally lurched into his embrace.

“I’m here. You’re safe.” The words seemed so inadequate in the face of everything Quinn had suffered – all the months of physical and psychological therapy they were facing if he had a chance of returning to even a shadow of his former self – but as he repeated the words over and over like a prayer, Quinn gradually allowed himself to be pulled into an even tighter embrace and Clint finally felt the glimmer of hope that he’d been searching for...the possibility that some day everything could be all right again.


End file.
